E-commerce has had a profound impact on the way people shop around the world. When done right, e-commerce offers shoppers an efficient and reliable way to meet their shopping needs met. Nearly anything consumers would want can be purchased online. Where online purchases and electronic products are concerned, customer expectations are that the transaction will be completed quickly and accurately. Particularly, with electronic products the expectation is that the product purchased and downloaded will be available for use immediately after the purchase. Delivering this kind of service requires that systems are up and running, or at least appear to be up and running 100% of the time. With certain transactions, it is absolutely crucial that this is the case in order to maintain customer satisfaction. For example, payment systems must be accessible in order to complete a purchase so the user does not have to return at a later time to complete the purchase. Digital rights management for electronic products must be available so that the customer may enjoy full use of the product as soon as it has been purchased and downloaded.
In order to provide a positive customer experience, e-commerce providers and distributors require a failover system and method that ensures that technical errors and problems do not interfere with timely provision of critical electronic data.